Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Source Publication

Computers in the Schools

Abstract

This case study chronicles one teacher’s experience in the semester after an in-service course, Using Technology for Instruction and Assessment. Results suggest that success in the course and good intentions do not necessarily translate into dramatic change in methods or media of instruction. Student mobility and special needs, unexpected administrative mandates, the anxiety of being judged as competent based on standardized test results, poorly designed classrooms, insufficient time to master new software, and habitual ways of conceptualizing what and how students should learn–all complicate efforts to help students use computers to construct meaning and represent their learning to others. Certainly, a professional development course is just one variable in a complex equation which has, as its solution, transformative teaching.

Comments

Originally published in Computers in the Schools, Volume 23, No. 1/2 (2006), DOI: 10.1300/J025v23n0107.